“Just keeping my fingers crossed, sir,” Westcott gloomily said. “And trusting that the transports’ masters are professional seafarers.”
Then God help us all, Lewrie thought in dread.
* * *
They did begin to get the hang of it, after a few more hours, with a steady following wind, and a less-than-boisterous sea to steady all ships, making between seven or eight knots. By Two Bells of the Day Watch, one in the afternoon, Lewrie felt confident enough that he could cease trotting up and down the ladderways from the quarterdeck to a better view from the poop deck and back again over and over. He went to the forward edge of the quarterdeck and saw Yeovill coming aft from the galley with his covered brass food barge, and decided that he would go aft and eat his delayed dinner.
“I’ll be aft, Mister Harcourt,” he told the Second Lieutenant, who had the Day Watch.
“Very good, sir,” Harcourt replied, “I have the deck.”
Harcourt’s reply was a formality, perhaps too much so, stiffer and cooler than Lewrie liked. During their time in port, he had had his officers and Mids in to dine, to get to know them and take their measure, and he had noticed that Lt. Harcourt had held himself in a strict reserve, as if he privately resented the arrival of a new Captain and the loss of Sapphire’s first one. For certain, Westcott’s arrival as the new First Officer, which had kept him in his place as the Second Officer, was resented, Lewrie had surmised, and that senior Midshipman, Hillhouse…! They had both been in the same group at-table one night, and Lewrie had noticed some enigmatic shared looks between them, as if Harcourt and Hillhouse were allied in some way.
The Third Lieutenant, Edward Elmes, seemed a decent sort, as did most of the Mids, especially the younger ones, but a couple of the older ones, like Hillhouse, Britton, and Leverett, had struck Lewrie as much of the same frame of mind as Lt. Harcourt … a tad sulky and disappointed.
Thankfully, Lewrie had his “spies”. Pettus, Jessop, Yeovill, and Desmond and Furfy all berthed below among the common seamen, with their ears open, and he had Geoffrey Westcott in the wardroom to pick up on the mood of his officers. All were “Captain’s Men”, who could not pry too overtly, round whom disgruntled, larcenous, even mutinous sailors would not gripe or complain too openly, but, by just listening, the people of his entourage could glean information and pass on should it sound dangerous. Lewrie’s only lack was below in the Midshipmen’s mess, since he had brought no one beholden to his patronage or his “interest” aboard with him, and despised the practise of favouring young “cater-cousins” or the nepotism of placing one’s own sons in one’s vessel.
“’Vast there, damn yer eyes,” Lewrie snapped as Bisquit tumbled down from the poop deck, where he’d been barking and chasing after the many seagulls that wheeled and hovered out of his reach, and pressed his way past Lewrie’s legs into the great-cabins. The dog dashed about and made a rapid circuit of the day cabin, sending Chalky scrambling from the comfy settee cushions to the top of the desk, in a bristled-up and spitting huff. Bisquit trotted to the edge of the desk, snuffled at the cat, dangerously within clawing distance, and wagging his bushy tail in glad greetings, before padding to the middle of the canvas deck chequer to sit down, tongue lolling as if he was late to dinner.
“Ye know ye don’t belong in here,” Lewrie sternly said.
Bisquit whined and did a little dance with his front paws, with a grin on his face, his stand-and-fall ears perking up.
“Got spoiled ashore, sir,” Pettus said with fondness in his voice. “Allowed the run of your father’s house all winter when you were healing up? Warm fires, and treats in the kitchen, and he learned to go out to do his business. Jessop and I taught him. Put him out of the cabins, sir?”
Bisquit didn’t think that his case was made, for he whined some more and rolled over onto his back, wriggling back and forth to invite someone to come rub his belly.
“Oh, Hell,” Lewrie gave in, kneeling down to oblige the dog, sending Bisquit into paroxyms of delight. “You bloody pest. Aye, ye are, d’ye know that?” But he said it with a coo.
Yeovill came in with his food barge.
“Now just look what you started, Yeovill,” Lewrie accused with mock severity. “All your warm kitchen fires, and treats.”
“Me, sir?” Yeovill gawped. “Wasn’t just me, sir!” He peered about, as if looking for support from his co-conspirators. “But, ehm … should I put out an extra bowl, sir?”
“Aye,” Lewrie said with a sigh as he got back to his feet. “A few sausages cut up, to go with his gruel.”
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were “Banyan Days” when boiled salt meats were off the menu, replaced with oatmeal, cheese, bisquit, pease pudding, portable soup, butter, and beer. But, no one with a heart could begrudge Bisquit or Chalky their jerky, sausages or pemmican. Except for when Lewrie had supper guests, Chalky got his in a bowl at the foot of the dining table. Poor old Toulon, who had died the year before, had had his bowl there, too, but it proved to be too small for Bisquit. He got a chipped soup bowl on the deck to hold his food. After they’d eat, Chalky nervously peered down at the dog, let out a warning hiss, then did a prodigious leap far past him to bound into the starboard quarter gallery right aft and take a perch atop the stores packed in the un-used toilet. Bisquit padded about for a time before circling round on the Axminster carpet by the low, brass Hindoo tray table in front of the starboard-side settee and flopping down to take a nap.
“Spoiled, indeed,” Lewrie commented to Pettus, as his steward served him a steaming-hot cup of tea with goat’s milk and sugar. “Do you keep an eye on him, though, if he looks in need of … going.”
“Yes, sir,” Pettus said with a sly look. “Hear that, Jessop?”
“Aye, I do,” the servant said with a much-put-upon sigh.
* * *
Try as he might to stay aft in his cabins and write letters or read, and appear calmly confident—he thought of practicing upon his penny-whistle, but that was out, for every tootle made Bisquit howl along!—there was no helping it. Lewrie went back on deck by Six Bells of the Day Watch, had his collapsible wood-and-canvas deck chair fetched to the poop deck, and spent the last hour of that watch, and the first hour of the First Dog, pretending to loll unconcernedly, or pace about without appearing to fret, as his little convoy made its slow way down-Channel. The following winds from the Nor’east remained steady, and the Channel, which could be a right bitch three days out of five, stayed relatively calm, with only long rollers and waves no greater than four or five feet high, in long sets.
Even in a time of war, with French merchant trade, and the trade of her allies, denied passage, the English Channel was still one of the busiest bodies of water in the known world. It was also a body of water where French and Dutch privateers preyed upon the great convoys bound out overseas, or returning with their riches. Lewrie had cautiously ordered that his charges would hug closer to England than to the middle, just in case, but then so did every other ship with a master with a lick of sense. If the enemy could not pounce upon rich prizes fresh from India or the West Indies, they’d settle for vessels from the coasting trade, or the many fishing craft, which made the waters even more crowded. Fortunately, the Nor’east wind precluded vessels bound up-Channel for the Dover Straits from making much progess close-hauled, forcing them further out from the coast to make their tacks in more-open water, and this day’s traffic was mostly out-bound off the wind, so Sapphire and her convoy went with the flow, their own advance blunted for half the day by the stiff currents up-Channel.
Lewrie waited ’til the second rum issue of the day had been doled out, folded up his chair and bound it to the bulwarks, then went down to the quarterdeck. Lt. Elmes had the watch, and was standing by the starboard bulwarks, peering shoreward with his telescope when Lewrie appeared.